Ron Does Stuff

We’ve got a new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race! Let’s get into it!

Okay, we’re opening the episode with Raja, Bob the Drag Queen, and Kim Chi doing a classic camp Drag Race skit. Will other queens be making appearances on the show throughout the season? Kim and Bob’s bodies, though. The body is body-ing.

The first queen to enter is Athena Dion, and she’s got that Clash of the Titans owl with her. YES. As someone who grew up on the Harry Hamlin Clash of the Titans, that is very much appreciated.

Kenya Pleaser is up next, and you know I love a drag queen that fake moans the moment they step into the Werk Room. She does admit to being intimidated by Athena Dion, which just shows how influential Athena is.

Nini Coco is up next and she has energy. I can’t get a sense of the unhinged drag she says she has from her entrance look, but we have the rest of the season to see that anyway. It does bode well that she made her whole look. But quitting a mechanical engineering job? This is just the old person in me, but quitting a possibly well-paying job in this economy? Could never be me.

We then get Jane Don’t, who honestly follows the mold of Jinkx Monsoon and Plasma. She’s even from Seattle! But who she’s actually related to is Irene the Alien and Bosco, whose video of playing Magic the Gathering with Keith from the Try Guys had me reminiscing of the very short time that I played that game!

Discord Addams is up next and I love that look. She’s not so bad out of drag either! In the confessionals, there’s already tension between her and Nini Coco, so let’s see if that’s a storyline that the production will pursue as the season progresses.

Mia Starr is up next and everyone can feel free to tell me to shut my no drag knowledge mouth, but she reminds me of Salina Es Titties? She’s also the third Florida queen to enter after Athena and Discord. And she’s got a nice resume when it comes to her dancing career!

The next queen to enter is DD Fuego, and she’s the one that serves as the catalyst to the older queen discussion. Of the seven queens to enter so far, five of them are over 30, with only Nini Coco and Kenya Pleaser being the younger ones. Let’s see how this dichotomy plays out for the rest of the season.

Juicy Love Dion is next to enter the Werk Room, and she’s Morphine’s drag daughter and therefore, Athena’s granddaughter. I think she’s the fourth member of Athena’s drag family to compete in drag race! A quick Google search tells me that the only drag family to exceed that number is the House of Davenport.

Vita VonTeese Star enters the Werk Room next with a whole poem and everything, and comes with a pageant reputation. She’s won Black America Newcomer, Miss Empire, first runner-up at International Entertainer of the Year, and is also a designer. Athena knows all about her, and as the EW interview has shown, the two of them get to know each other even better throughout the season.

The next queen to enter the Werk Room is Briar Blush, and let’s just say she might not win Miss Congeniality. The way it’s edited certainly makes it look like there’s going to be conflict between Briar and Athena, just to start with.

Mandy Mango is up next and she is obviously Filipino. Don’t embarrass us girl! And wouldn’t you know it, Mandy Mango is an actual nurse. You go, Mandy Mango! Draw that blood!

After Mandy Mango, Ciara Myst is the next queen to enter and we find out that she also makes prostheses! Ciara also makes her own outfits, so I am looking forward to the runways this season.

Darlene Mitchell walks in next and I have honestly lost count of how many queens there are. Is she the final queen to enter? She’s also on a sobriety journey, and kudos to her for however long she’s managed to remain sober.

And Darlene Mitchell isn’t the last queen to enter, because up next is Myki Meeks, who calls herself a drag ingenue. She is also the fifth Florida girl in the cast. Has this been the most amount of girls from one state? I remember season eight having three New York girls.

With Myki in, the RuMail finally arrives and the queens are asked to shout ~Love!~ and look there, it lights up the whole room! Ru enters and tells them the first mini challenge of the season: screaming while a bunch of masked men dance around you? Honestly, I don’t know about this, but maybe it’s only because Athena isn’t doing much as the first one up. And…well, Mandy and Myki were funny, I guess? So was Kenya. But all in all, I thought it was…meh.

After the challenge, Briar Blush is coming out guns a-blazing in the talking head section. This is just a first impression so it may change down the line, but she’s giving Violet Chachki without the fashion. I’m sorry!

Kenya wins the first mini challenge and gets $2,500! It’s a good thing that the queens are getting paid! Or at least, the queens who are winning mini and Maxi challenges! And yes, I know that they’ve been doing it for some time now, but it’s always great when the queens get paid because we’ve all heard the stories of how expensive it is to compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Ru then reveals that the first Maxi Challenge is a design challenge using leftovers from previous seasons, and while the younger girls are looking for the talent show, I am happy that the show is indeed going back to its roots. Season three may have been the hardest for the queens because of all the design challenges, but that was great television.

The queens start looking at the materials they got and it looks like Darlene got Ariana Grande’s Ornacia head? It also looks like Kenya didn’t grab any fabric, so that’s going to be difficult in a design challenge, even if Kenya does know how to sew.

Nini Coco, on the other hand, has paper bags like Lala Ri did back in the day, and Nini is very much trying to avoid ending up with something like that. As iconic as that look was, I don’t think it was iconic in the way Lala wanted it to be.

Juicy is one of the queens that doesn’t sew, but as Jane Don’t points out, Juicy just has this aura that makes you want to help her. But it’s not Athena, her grandmother, who helps her out, so is this going to be a source of conflict later? We shall see!

Meanwhile, the camera checks back on Kenya and it’s just one mishap after another. She finally settles on deconstructing hats to make a shoulder piece, but going outside to spray pain them results in them falling apart. As she says so herself, by the end of the day she’s only had half a bra rhinestoned. Kenya, you in danger girl.

The next day, Briar and Athena get into a little argument about an incident the night before where Briar thought she was getting materials in exchange for helping Athena make gloves. And we already get one of the scenes shown in the trailer!

Ciara Myst is up first and…it’s okay! Athena’s is also cute, but I feel like if she had one of her designers on call, she’d have on something even more. Kenya…did the best with what she had, but at least she’s not making excuses for it. Nini’s look is miles ahead of Lala’s, but I don’t think it stands out among these queens.

Jane Don’t, for some reason, gave me Hormona Lisa, and while I liked Discord’s outfit, the judges don’t seem to be a fan of her walk. Mia’s outfit was okay, and DD Fuego…well, it was a look. It doesn’t help that up next is Juicy, whose fabric bands look more aesthetic than DD’s aluminum foil. The clear frontrunner of this challenge is Vita, who serves a great black and white look. While the other looks that came after Vita weren’t bad, they weren’t as good.

Athena, Discord, Mia, DD, Briar, Ciera, Darlene, and Myki are the safe girls, and I am shocked like Discord. Not that I thought Discord should be one of the top queens, but I thought DD would land in the bottom. Oh well.

Kenya, as expected, doesn’t get great critiques, while the judges show me that I am a no fashion knowledge ass because they love Nini’s paper bag look. Jane Don’t also gets positive critiques, while Juicy will probably be a high bottom placement because they loved the outfit when it was moving, but now when she was just standing there. Mandy looks like she’s also going to be in the bottom, but maybe her nursing storyline saves her?

We also get Cardi B along with her ~dolls~ visiting the queens in the main episode, so I’m wondering what it is they’re going to show in Untucked. It does look like Discord is going to cause some ~discord~, but let’s wait and see.

Back on the Main Stage, Juicy is the first of the bottom queens to be saved. But it’s a non-elimination day! YAY! Nini and Vita are going to lip sync for the win, and they’re going to do it to Cardi B’s song “Enough”. And it was a fun lip sync. Vita clapping in Nini’s face? Nini pointing to the rest of the queens for the slut line? I was hooting and hollering. I really thought it was neck and neck, but then Vita had to lie down and that just ruined her momentum, I think.

Nini wins! This was a great first episode, and I hope that this turns out to be a great season!

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